Practice makes perfect? How to develop your technical skills the effective way @Ellen_Koenig 

HOW DO EXPERTS BECOME EXPERTS? Cognitive competence (Deliberate stage) Associative competence (Practice stage) Autonomous competence (Performance stage) 

NORMAL LEARNING/GROWTH CURVE 

Challenge Clear objectives Feedback Repetition Concentration PRINCIPLES 

Examples Ruby Rails Scrum Objective ? ? ? Feedback ? ? ? Repetition ? ? ? 

measurable verb criterion of acceptable performance + LEARNING OBJECTIVES 

Predefined objectives: books, courses, ... Gather: Input or feedback from experts Define: Decomposition with selection FINDING AND DEFINING OBJECTIVES Precision: Substitution of vague words 

DEVELOPING AN OBJECTIVE I want to learn some advanced Ruby features. 

DEVELOPING AN OBJECTIVE Decomposition: I want to learn something about either: closures, meta programming, methods as objects. 

DEVELOPING AN OBJECTIVE Selection: I want to learn something about closures. 

DEVELOPING AN OBJECTIVE Precision: I want to learn how closures interact with array methods. 

DEVELOPING AN OBJECTIVE Measurable: I want to be able to apply closures to the three array methods „each“, „collect“ and map“ in a short Ruby demo. 

Examples Ruby Rails Scrum Objective Apply closures to „each“, „map“, „collect“ Identify differences in routing between Rails 3 and 4 Planning poker estimations no more than 50% off Feedback ? ? ? Repetition ? ? ? 

FEEDBACK Evaluate Plan Act Observe 

Examples Ruby Rails Scrum Objective Apply closures to „each“, „map“, „collect“ Identify differences in routing between Rails 3 and 4 Planning poker estimations no more than 50% off Feedback Direct feedback: Exploration in irb Migrate R3 routing file to R4 with code review from expert Compare estimates with real results Repetition ? ? ? 

100% 80% 60% 40% 20% 0% 0 mins 20 mins 60 mins 9 hrs 24 hrs 48 hrs 6 days 31 days EBBINGHAUS‘ RETENTION CURVE 

Rehearsals REPETITION STRATEGIES Foundation skill building Scenario learning Simulations 

Examples Ruby Rails Scrum Objective Apply closures to „each“, „map“, „collect“ Identify differences in routing between Rails 3 and 4 Planning poker estimations no more than 50% off Feedback Direct feedback: Exploration in irb Migrate R3 routing file to R4 with code review from expert Compare estimates with real results Repetition Different coding challenges Migrate multiple files with different features Perform estimation each week for two months 

Clear objectives • What to learn next? • challenging, but not paralyzing • verb + criterion of successful performance • Sources: Predefined, experts, own • Refinement: decomposition and substitution Feedback • Can you tell if you hit your goal? • built-in vs. explicit • positive vs. negative Repetition • For how much variation do you need to plan? • Rehearsals • Foundational skills + simulations • Szenarios / case studies DEFINE YOUR OWN APPROACH 

Have fun learning! :) 

Image Source Slide 15: Ebbinghaus‘ curve: Wikipedia: http://commons.wikimedia.org/ wiki/File:Vergessenskurve.png (modified to translate from German to English and fit design)